Storytelling, reflecting, and practicing: Exploring curatorial practice in rural Canada

Abstract

Curators contribute and collaborate with their local environments and make decisions that influence the stories that are told, a community’s reflection of itself, and the practical implementation of the community’s artistic, social, and historical priorities. This research examines curatorial practices taking place in rurally located regional galleries in Canada – a setting which is perhaps less well studied or understood in curatorial scholarship. Through storytelling, reflecting, and practicing approaches to curation, this study explores how individual curators employed in three rural Canadian galleries are navigating emergent methodologies in the field. Narrative methodologies were employed to conduct semi-structured interviews with three curators. Interviews sought to gain a better understanding of how concepts such as care, slow curating, curatorial dreaming, admin activism, and curation as indeterminate practice are being employed within these settings. This research calls for increased focus on critical approaches to curation in rural Canadian galleries and advocates for broader understandings of curator demographics and the impact of government policies in these settings.